


Clogged Vent

by taylor_tut



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Asthma, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Gavin Reed Redemption, Gavin is still an asshole, Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Protective Hank Anderson, Sick Character, Sickfic, Whump, android whump, basically they're all friends, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15881952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A prompt from my tumblr for Connor experiencing an "asthma attack" from a clogged vent.





	Clogged Vent

"What the fuck is that whistling noise?" Gavin asked irritably. Being stuck on a crime scene with Anderson and his plastic puppy was annoying enough, not to mention that it was just shy of half a million degrees outside and this red-ice lab had been a fairly long walk from the car, so his fuse was running short. 

"What whistling noise?" Hank asked, turning toward Gavin and RK900.

"I hear it, too," RK900 contributed, "like a sort of mechanical sound."

Hank frowned. "You think someone's in here fuckin' with machines?" he conjectured, his posture straightening up from "stuck working on a Saturday" mode to "DPD, come out with your hands up." 

Slowly, gun drawn, Gavin led the pack toward the sound, around a corner to reveal—

"Damn it; it's just Connor," he cursed. Connor, stooped down to examine evidence, looked up at him, confused.

"Do you need something, Detective?" he asked, a slightly harsh bite to his tone. Gavin had lightened up a bit, but their relationship was still tremulous, unstable. 

"Is that you makin' that whirring noise?" Gavin demanded. Surprisingly, Connor looked like he hadn't noticed, taking inventory of himself for a moment before nodding.

"Yes," he replied, "it appears that one of my vents is clogged. I'm sorry for the annoyance; I can turn it off for the investigation."

Hank's jaw dropped. "Did you just offer to stop breathing because it annoyed Reed?" Hank accused, but Gavin just rolled his eyes.

"It's fine," he barked, "just fix it when you can." Connor nodded. 

Hank, however, wasn't so easily placated. 

"Is a clogged vent gonna be a problem for you?" he asked concernedly. Connor was already looking a bit flushed, but that could be from the stifling heat of the day. 

"It just helps to cool my biocomponents," he dodged, "but the vents themselves are not essential to my function." Hank nodded, accepting that answer for the time being, and turned back to focus on the case once more. 

Hank and Gavin took pictures and bagged evidence while Connor and Nines licked samples and ran fingerprints, all four of them trying to stay out of the way of each others' flaring tempers. The DPD was sending them on joint investigations more and more often, and they still weren't over the learning curve for not biting each others' heads off. 

"Yo, Nines," Gavin called, "Connor, c'mere. There's a whole fuck-ton of blood in here." 

RK900 hadn't been far from Gavin's side—he never was—but Connor was still flutting about somewhere else, examining a different room. When he didn't come when called, Hank went looking for him, finding him stooped over what appeared to be nothing in an empty room, and knocked on the doorframe. 

"Hey, Connor," Hank tried for his attention, frowning when Connor startled.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" he prompted, wavering a bit when he stood. Hank raised one eyebrow. "Did you need something?"

"Not me; Gavin," he dismissed. "You good, kid?" he asked, taking a step toward him. 

"Perfectly fine," Connor replied. Hank could hear the whistling noise that Connor's simulated breathing was making, sounding labored and strained, like a laptop trying to run the Sims while nestled in blankets. However, Connor's expression was normal, and he looked eager to continue helping with the investigation, so Hank shook off the doubt and motioned toward where Gavin and Nines were.

There was, indeed, a fuck-ton of blood, both blue and red, inside the room. 

"It looks like there was a fight," Connor observed, and Gavin nodded slowly, mockingly. 

"You think so?" he teased. Connor ignored the hostility and knelt down to start examining samples. The poorly ventilated room seemed to be growing hotter by the minute, and Hank wiped sweat from his forehead, watching as Nines and Connor systematically ran every sample they could find and determined that all the pools of blood had actually only come from three suspects, two human, one deviant. 

“That’s great,” Hank rushed, “can we go? S’fuckin’ sweltering in here.” 

“I believe that we’ve done all we can do for the preliminary search,” Nines agreed. “We may need to come back, but for now, this is sufficient.”

“Thank fuck,” Gavin praised, “I’m starving. Let’s drop this shit off at the precinct and grab some burgers.” It had become something of a routine to eat together after a long day of work. Though Connor and RK900 insisted that their tagging along was unnecessary, as they don’t eat, Hank and Gavin brought them anyway, every time, and they never complained. It was fun, or the closest that they could experience to it, to sit and chat over a late dinner. 

The whirring from Connor’s vents became audibly worse the moment that he stepped outside. The high temperature of the day had begun to overheat his biocomponents, and his fans were trying their hardest to compensate, but couldn’t push the hot air out due to the clogged vents. Connor was taking in more air to try to combat that, which left him making a sort of wheezy, gasping noise. 

He was lagging far enough behind the group that they couldn’t hear it. 

“Shotgun,” Gavin claimed, though it was hardly necessary: they naturally assumed the position of Nines driving, Gavin in the passenger seat, and Hank and Connor in the back. 

“Yeah, nobody’s fightin’ ya for it,” Hank grumbled, tugging at the back door like a petulant child without waiting for Nines to unlock the car. “Connor, you comin’?”

Connor nodded wordlessly, trying to catch up to the group, but when he pushed himself to try to go faster, red “overheat imminent” warnings flashed across his optical field. He climbed into the back seat next to Hank and sat forward, feeling the suffocating heat of the car in his ventilation system. 

“Connor?” Hank called. “Jesus Christ, you need a muffler or something?” Connor took a raspy breath and shook his head. 

“Clogged vent,” he gasped, “I can’t—cool down.” Gavin immediately started fiddling with the air conditioning, aiming the vents toward Connor as much as he could, while Hank sat him up to look at his face. His cheeks were flushed blue, the skin-like plastic becoming more translucent in the heat. 

“You’ve gotta calm down,” Hank instructed. “You’re hyperventilating.” Connor tried, but breathing slower wasn’t really an option, as every breath he took gave him no relief from the bright warnings and the stifling discomfort of an overheating system. 

“Can’t,” Connor argued, “Can’t—breathe.” The car AC was on, but the heat pouring off Connor was overwhelming any efforts to counteract it, and Hank could swear that it was hotter than when they’d gotten in. 

“What do we do?” Hank asked, partly to Connor, partly to Nines, partly to no one at all.

“The vent needs to be cleared,” Nines replied, “but I can’t get to it without proper tools.” 

Connor was spread across the seat, trying and failing to stay calm. His stress levels were rising with each minute that passed without being able to breathe. Gavin threw open the door of the car and started fishing around in the bed of the truck for his tool kit. 

“Will any of this help?” he asked, jerking the box toward RK900, who opened it and rummaged around until he found a screwdriver. 

“This might suffice,” he ventured, “though you don’t have the exact head for this task.” Gavin rolled his eyes irritably, but Nines paid him no mind as Hank helped Connor out of the car to sit on the ground of the parking lot while they began to open his chest. The vents were all around the thirium pump, where they could cool the biocomponents without being too distracting. RK900 unscrewed the chest plate, then the vent itself, and winced. As soon as the clogged vent was removed, Connor took a gasping breath, finally able to run the fan without interference. 

“Easy, kid,” Hank soothed, “breathe nice and slow.”

Connor tried to take measured breaths, but found that instinct and necessity took over, his chest heaving. Well, at least the horrible wheezing sound was gone. 

“This is really clogged, Connor,” Nines observed sympathetically. “No wonder you couldn’t breathe. How’s your core temperature?”

Connor nodded, watching Hank take out a handkerchief from his pocket and wipe the inside of the vent like Connor had seen him do to the dryer lint screen a thousand times. 

“Dropping,” he replied, intentionally inspecific, Hank assumed, since he could still feel the heat pouring off him. 

“That’s good. Here’s this,” he said, handing the now-clean vent back to Nines, who replaced it and watched Connor’s reaction for a bit before closing him back up. 

“You’re alright?” Nines confirmed, beginning to screw the vent in place when Connor nodded. He felt oddly naked without his chest plate, and was grateful when Nines finally had it back where it belonged. 

“Sorry about the inconvenience,” Connor apologized, earning a scolding look from Hank. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Hank replied, helping Connor to his feet and into the car. “The only thing you stalled is Gavin’s meal.”

Gavin glared. “Fuck off, Anderson,” he muttered. Hunger made him grumpy.

“Let’s get you home,” Hank said, letting Connor’s exhausted head rest on his shoulder as Nines started the drive back to the precinct. 


End file.
